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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29766678">Death in its Purest Form</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BelleMorte180/pseuds/BelleMorte180'>BelleMorte180</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, a moment of grief struck, this was born, unedited</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 00:34:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,475</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29766678</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BelleMorte180/pseuds/BelleMorte180</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>No one prepared Caroline for the fact that grief started long before someone died.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Caroline Forbes/Klaus Mikaelson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Death in its Purest Form</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I didn't edit this. I couldn't. I was hit by a moment of sadness that was just overwhelming. The words needed out and here it is. These are my own memories mingled with bits of fiction. </p>
<p>I wasn't going to post it at first. I was going to let it linger in my google docs drive until it was buried at the bottom. But I spent the last few hours purging myself, making myself feel better. Writing is how I deal with moments of grief and the more I thought about it, I realized that sometimes people turn to reading as a way to deal with theirs. </p>
<p>If anything good can come of this, maybe it can help someone else. </p>
<p>Or it just makes people cry. I don't know. I didn't read over this story at all. Not once. And I won't.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The lights flickered overhead, the fluorescent hugh gazing overhead as Caroline breathed in the sterile smell of the room. Staring at the white false brick of the wall, unable to gaze at anything else. The high pitched ringing that sounded in her ears blurred out everything else around her. There was a voice, mingled in the sound; something distant and far away. Eyes looked at her, expecting an answer but she had nothing to say. No words could form from her lips as she felt her throat dry up and tighten. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“The test results are clear…..”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“If it hits the bloodstream….”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“We can biopsy, see how far…..”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Try chemotherapy but….”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Cancer….”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cancer.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Caroline was terrified. A thousand different emotions swirled in her soul, tearing at the fabric of her core. The world shattered around her in a thousand pieces. Seconds passed by like years, time fading into nothing more than an overbearing haze, waiting to consume her whole. Her lungs felt like they were filled with water, drowning her in a sea of misery. Bile rolled in her stomach, the thought of anything becoming too painful for her to bear witness too. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then she felt it. A hand slipped into her and gave her a gentle squeeze. Her head turned upward to see the smile that she knew she needed. A smile she wondered how she was going to live without. She couldn’t. Caroline needed that smile. To hear that voice. To talk to when things went wrong. It was her lifeline and her closest friend. Yet, staring into those blue eyes, she knew that it wasn’t about her. She needed to be strong and hold everything together, because if she didn’t everything would fall apart. She took a deep breath and turned to look at the man she had known since she was a child. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What do we do next?” She heard the sound of her own voice but it felt distant; far away, like a tragedy printed in the paper with thoughts </span>
  <em>
    <span>how horrible </span>
  </em>
  <span>echoed before life moved on. Yet the words were carved into stone and impossible to reverse. She looked at Dr. Gilbert’s disponent eyes and she knew. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>All they had left was time. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Liz tried chemo but it wasn’t for her. Caroline could see that she was fighting not to stay alive but to give Caroline a sense of </span>
  <em>
    <span>something. </span>
  </em>
  <span>The sleepless nights and queasy stomachs; the body aches and the smell of organs shutting down. Liz was ready to go, Caroline could see that but Liz kept trying; fighting, but it wasn’t for her. It was for Caroline. Everything was for Caroline.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Caroline hated herself a little for that. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t want to die.” Caroline shook herself, unable to breath. It was late, the sun had set hours ago and the stars hung high in the sky; the moon casting a haunting glow on the world. Something was wrong. There was a sharp tightening in her test. Her arm felt numb and panic was coursing through her body. She felt the world ending, collapsing around her in a pile of rubble that she couldn’t dig herself out from. “I’m not ready to die.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sweetheart, it’s okay. You’re okay.” Her husband whispered to her, soothing her the best he could but she couldn’t hear him. She needed to move, pace back and forth until the end came. She waited for it. Waited darkness that had been hanging over them to consume her and take her away from everything that was suffocating her. Yet, the darkness wasn’t there for her. “Breathe, Love. In and out. In and out.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t want to die.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Honey, come here.” Caroline looked up to see her frail mother standing in front of her. Her body was decimated; bones peaking through her skin and a hollow look in her eyes. The medication had worn her down, fogging anything that was left of her, stripping her personality away one by one; but it kept the pain away for a few moments. Made death almost feel bearable. “Come sit with me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Caroline went willinging into her mother’s arm, inhaling the familiar scent mixed with something else. Something she couldn’t, </span>
  <em>
    <span>wouldn’t,</span>
  </em>
  <span> think of. She curled into her mother’s side, and let herself be rocked as though she was a small child. She was breaking, relying on the dying to bring her comfort. It was selfish and something she could never forgive herself for.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The couch creased beside her and the familiar feeling of a warm hand on her back grounded her. Klaus. Her rock and the one person keeping her from falling apart completely. The man she married at the tender age of twenty-one and never looked back. They were happy. Before death's bony hands came knocking, Caroline had thought her world was perfect. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In the arms of her mother and the man she loved, Caroline fell asleep for the first and possibly last time in a long while. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There were moments of laughter. They were rare but it happened. Shared meals in the hospital rooms during chemotherapy or the late nights watching movies on the living room sofa. Liz couldn’t climb the stairs anymore and a bed was pushed against the wall. Caroline would climb in beside her, watch some film she couldn’t recall; only laughing when she saw the smile on her mother’s lips would appear. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They slept in the living room. Caroline on the sofa and Klaus on the chair. Alarms set for round the clock medication and Caroline’s obsessive needs to chart Liz’s temperature and O2 levels. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been upstairs for anything more than a shower, and even those were short. There was no time to rest because there was always something to do. If she let herself rest, everything became real; pressing down upon her like a weight making itself far too comfortable. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I saw you.” Liz said in a hazy voice one morning after her unrestful sleep was blinked from her eyes. She was looking at Klaus, the son-in-law she once threatened to never hurt her daughter. “I know you think I didn’t, but I did.” Neither Klaus nor Caroline knew was referring to; racking their brains for some sin that had been committed. They came up empty. Liz raised her thin hand and pointed to her eyes before pointing at Klaus. “I saw you fall off that chair, Klaus. I saw it. I saw it happen.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Like a whip, the moment cracked and Caroline couldn’t stop laughing. Her insides hurt from the feeling. Her stomach was in knots  and her lungs felt the sharp intake of breath. Her laughter sounded manic when it reached her ears. With wobbly legs she walked to the kitchen, her knees giving out when she reached it; but she didn’t hit the floor. Klaus’s arms caught her and pressed her close to his chest, allowing her to break down into sobs. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’ll have to make a choice.” The doctor told her late one evening. The sound of the heart monitor beeping in her ears and the rattling of carts as they passed by the room. Once again, that steril smell that was all too familiar reached her nostrils. The doctor was by the bed, Liz’s levels were dropping and a fever of 106 fahrenheit raged in her. Everything could end tonight; death lingered just around the corner and it could come knocking at any moment. “If she doesn’t get better, you’ll have to make a choice.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was no choice. Caroline knew that. She could allow her mother to suffer, to continue to fight the losing battle before her. Continue to allow the disease to ravage her body, mold her into something so unrecognizable that Caroline already felt as though her mother was dead. Liz wouldn’t mind. She would continue forward. Continue to fight  because it was what Caroline needed. She needed her mother. It was too soon for her to die. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Yet, death was a kindness. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Did you sleep?” Klaus asked through the phone. Caroline could hear the jingling of keys and the shutting of a car door. He was coming to get her, and a moment of relief surged through her. Liz was staying behind, only to come home a few days later. Yet, Caroline dreaded that.  Dreaded the return of the exhaustion and coldness. All she wanted to do was sleep, but sleep was no longer her friend. It no longer greeted her with a warm embrace but instead, nothing more than the twisting of the knife in her back. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No. I didn’t.” Caroline curled up in her bed, closing her eyes and praying that the darkness let her be, just for a few hours. It was the first time she had been in her own bed in weeks. She couldn’t say the last time she felt her husband's arms around her as they slumbered. She knew he missed it, missed her. But he never complained. Not once. He was steadfast and unyielding; holding her upright so she didn’t crumble. Without him, Caroline felt as though she would succumb to madness. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No one prepared Caroline for the fact that grief started long before someone died. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“There is molching on her legs. Discoloring on the skin. It's starting.” April, the hospice nurse whispered to Klaus one afternoon. Caroline was curled up on the couch, watching her mother’s labored breathing. She could see Klaus’s worried gaze looking at her, wondering if she could hear what they were saying. She did. Every word. She knew it was coming, had known it from the first moment in Dr. Gilbert's office. The world was growing bleeker and soon it would hold little color at all. “It will be a week. Give or take. Maybe less.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Liz held out her hand, asking Caroline to come to her; she obeyed. She sat on the floor, at the base of the hospice bed and clutched that fragile hand like a lifeline. She couldn’t remember what her mother said, whispering words that she could not hear. All she could feel was that small hand in hers and the taste of the salt from her tears. The memory was too powerful and yet all too weak at the same time. Death was such a fickle thing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Am I going to die?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes. You’re going to die.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Caroline didn’t know if April was being kind or cruel. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It happened on a Friday just past eight in the morning. Liz tried to stand, unable to sit still. Dread filled her as she watched her mother trying to stand, pointing at something over her shoulder. Klaus tried to lay her back down, but there was something Liz needed. She was speaking to something, someone that Caroline just couldn’t see. This was death in action; death in its slowest forms and yet Caroline found that she couldn’t cry. She had no tears left to let fall. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You can go mom. It's okay. You can go now.” The hardest sentence Caroline had ever uttered in her life. But she sat on that bed, held her mother’s hand and let the words tumble out as though it was easy. It wasn’t, but it was what Liz needed to hear. It was the words that caused the pale blue eyes that Caroline had admired as a child go vacant. Her hand went limp and suddenly, she was gone. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elizabeth Forbes died on a cold Friday, just after eight in the morning. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Shut your mouth.” “Bite me” and “Wow” </span>
  </em>
  <span>were Liz’s last words. A string of incoherent garble that was said to no one in the room understood. Caroline heard those words over and over in her minds as she cleaned her kitchen, scrubbing the tile as her mother’s body laid in the next room; waiting for the funeral home to come and collect the body. Klaus made the arrangements, set up the meeting to meet with them in order to plan the funeral; write the obituary. Caroline couldn’t think of that. She just had to keep cleaning, scrubbing everything until her fingertips bleed. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’ll think back on this, you know. In ten years or so.” Pastor Young said when he gave to help them grieve. They were not religious but it was a small town, and they were in the spotlight. People would come and go, give their condolences and then move on. But in that moment, Pastor Young took the sponge from her hand and gave her a sad smile. “You’ll look back on this and wonder how you managed to survive this.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It didn’t take Caroline ten years to wonder how she survived. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She wondered about it everyday since. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elena brought a lasagna. The only friend who stopped by that night, the only friend who understood such shared grief. Hospice collected the bed and the rented belongings, giving them a sad smile and well wishes, but not Elena. Elena made lasagna, sat on the couch and held Caroline’s hand, letting the silence creep in. Elena understood the need for silence. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you okay?” She asked later, sitting in her bed, watching as Klaus slipped on a pair of pajama pants. It felt strange sitting in her bed, getting ready to go to sleep when there was no hollow breathing in the floor below. He was tired and it hurt Caroline to see that she hadn’t noticed before. She felt selfish then, wondering why she had made the whole thing about her; never once wondering how her husband was fairing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Me? Don’t worry about me, Sweetheart. I’m not going anywhere.” He climbed into bed and pulled Caroline into his arms. She went willingly, resting her head against his chest and listening to his heartbeat. It was the most beautiful sound in the world at that moment. Death lingered in their home but there was still some life left to live. If she didn’t have Klaus, Caroline didn’t know how she would be able to continue to breath. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It wasn’t this hard when dad died. It was quick but it didn’t hurt like this.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It was because your mother was still here, Love. You still had her but now both your parents are gone.” He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. Silent tears fell down her cheeks and she made no move to whip them from her skin. “But you have me, okay? You will always have me and I’m here to stay. I promise.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thank you.” She placed a kiss on his chest, unable to move anywhere else. Her body felt heavy and tired. The weights that had been holding her down had lifted but left her body bruised. There was relief in the heaviness. A moment to relax and rest, something she didn’t remember was possible. “I’m only twenty-eight years old. What am I to do now?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You live.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
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